FAMOUS DOLL HOUSE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22819, 28 August 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

FAMOUS DOLL HOUSE

IF ever you visit Amsterdam go to the Royal Museum to see a famous dollhouse, which was built for Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Julia W. Wolfe tells about it in an article in Lutheran Young Folks condensed by Fact Digest: While Peter the Great, a young man of 24, was living in Holland and working at various jobs to acquaint himself with the arts, commerce and industry of the Dutch, he chanced one day to se«e a tiny model of a seventeenthcentury dwelling and promptly fell in love with it. " what it costs," he declared, " I must have one like it." But ,the miniature house and its lovely, lavish furnishings were not for sale, and the creator would make none for pay. Rich Man's Hobby The artist's name was Brandt. He was 'a successful merchant of Utrecht, who, having amassed a great fortune, had retired from business and in his leisure time made diminutive houses, furniture, toys and ornaments as a hobby. Collectors came to see Brandt and begged for one of his toys or houses. The Antiquarian Museum at Utrecht, the 'old Dutch university town, still treasures one of Brandt's sumptuously furnished little dwelJing3, with thumbnail paintings by Dutch masters on the wall. It was probably this model that so enchanted Tsar Peter. Brandt offered to make for his admirer a little palace,,excelling all others in delicacy and ingenuity of workmanship, and to furnish it appropriately and equip it with all the necessities of life in a patrician Dutch household of the times. With his own hands he constructed a three-storey house about sis feet wide.

It Was M Peter the But He O The Builder All of the furniture it contained wan made by him. He made the moulds, which afterwards he destroyed, for the articles of plate and for silver and copper utensils. Regardless of expense, he had suitable carpets manufactured, and ordered chests of table and house linen woven in Flanders. ,M" The books that filled the; miniature library shelves came froni/ Mayence; each volume had golden clasps and was of a size to be enclosed in a walnut shell. The hanging chandelier and services of glass were of Dutch manufacture. - . . Finished at Lastij|§t For 25 years Brandt laboured to create this royal gift. At last he seftt word to the Tsar that the task was complete. When Peter received Brandt's message he had not forgotten the desire he had expressed a quarter of a century before, and he directed that a reply be sent asking what he~ would have to pay • for the possession of the masterpiece. Deeply offended at Peter's tactlessness and disposition to bargain," Brandt replied that even a Tsar had not money enough to pay for twenty-five years of a man's life. Forthwith, he presented the house to the- Dutch nation, and that is why it stands to this day in the Amsterdam Museum.